Standard Chartered Bank Provides Access to Impaired Vision Handling for Children with Special Needs

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta Standard Chartered Bank ( "Bank") together with CBM and the Foundation for Child and Family Services ( "WORTH") today held training for teachers from 14 Schools ( "SLB") in the Greater Jakarta area.

Training aimed at improving the capacity of teachers in assisting children with special needs with low vision is taking place at the Dwituna Rawinala Jakarta Educational Training Center.

The training provided consists of how to conduct assessment for people with low vision (low vision) to provide recommendations for advanced treatment for parents and other concerned parties.

This training program is part of the Seeing is Believing Addressing Child Blindness and Low Vision Visual Impairment Project, which was launched in late 2015 with the target work areas in Greater Jakarta, South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara for a period of five years.

To date, the program has reached 1,800 special needs children from 40 SLB in Jabodetabek and Makassar. Of the 1,800 children, 794 have received follow-up services.

Dody Rochadi, Country Head of Corporate Affairs at Standard Chartered Bank Indonesia affirmed, "We are very happy that many special needs children have access to eye examinations and follow-up treatment. We hope through the Seeing is Believing program, we can contribute to reduce the number of blindness in Indonesia so as to encourage economic growth in the region to the national level. This is our commitment to Indonesia."

Globally, an estimated 285 million people (4.24%) had visual impairment, 39 million (0.58%) are blind and 246 million (3.65%) mengalamilow vision (Global Data on Visual Impairment 2010, WHO 2012 ). Indonesia ranks third in the list of countries with the highest rates of blindness in the world, reaching 1.5persen higher than other countries in Southeast Asia.

In Indonesia, there are about 3.5 million people suffering from blindness in both eyes where 5060 percent or about 1.5 million suffer from blindness due to cataracts. Other causes are glaucoma and deviation of the eye (refractive error).

According to Evie Tarigan, Chairman of Yayasan LAYAK, one of the nonprofit institutions that partnered Standard Chartered Bank in the Seeing is Believing program, said the prevalence of blindness can also be influenced by socio-economic factors.

"The lack of access to prevention and treatment of visual impairment and blindness is also strongly influenced by financial constraints, low mobility and low exposure to information. We highly appreciate Seeing's Believing program which focuses on prevention of blindness and increased awareness of the impact of blindness and ensures access to rehabilitation services for permanent vision impairment."

Through the Seeing is Believing program launched since 2003, the Bank aims to provide access to affordable eye and eye-care services for people in low-per capita income countries to reduce the rate of treatable sight disturbances.

Dody added, "In Indonesia, since 2003, the program has disbursed more than $ 9 million for the health care program eye for society, ranging from children to adults, including the provision of vitamin A to more than two million people, providing health education an eye for more than 1.9 million people, as well as eye health recovery for over 138,000 people."

In recognition of its commitment and consistency, Seeing is Believing program has won several awards, including MURI and Global Gold CSR Leadership Award.